First Day of First Grade!
The first day of first grade is always a really fun, but hectic day for my littles. They are so excited to come to school, but they are always a little nervous since they don’t know what to expect when they walk through my classroom door. I always have an activity such as a first day coloring page or a play-doh model on their desks to work on ri... Read more 10 Jul 2018 - 3 minute read
The Primary Brain Blog is Now HTTPS Enabled
Theprimarybrain.com is now HTTPS enabled! HTTPS encrypts or “scrambles” web traffic so it is unreadable to anybody but the viewer and the site. My blog is a simple static web site, but any site can be secured by your web host. Since 2014, Google has been increasing search engine ranking if websites are secured. More recently in July 2018, Chr... Read more 03 Jul 2018 - less than 1 minute read
That's It! No More Pencil Boxes!
That’s it! After this past school year, I am throwing in the towel on pencil boxes. I have used them every year for the past five years that I have taught first grade. Sadly, this was the first year where my students were so unorganized that we just couldn’t make it work. I was constantly finding crumpled papers, broken crayons, stickers, pens, ... Read more 30 Jun 2018 - 1 minute read
Classroom Community Building Activities
I don’t know about you, but I CAN’T WAIT to meet my students next year! One of my favorite tools to use when meeting my students the first week of school are my Back to School Reflection Prompt Cards. By spending some time each day reflecting as a class, I feel that we deepen relationships in our classroom and create a culture where every studen... Read more 26 Jun 2018 - 2 minute read
Teaching Respect in the Classroom
One of the most important lessons I want my first graders to leave me with at the end of the year is a respect for one another. So many kids today are not taught the importance of respecting authority, their peers, or themselves within their own homes. Therefore, we as teachers have a huge responsibility to teach our littles how to show respect ... Read more 22 Jun 2018 - 2 minute read